TY - JOUR T1 - Lyme disease: implications for general practice JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 106 LP - 107 DO - 10.3399/bjgp20X708341 VL - 70 IS - 692 AU - Victoria Cairns Y1 - 2020/03/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/70/692/106.abstract N2 - Lyme disease is a complicated disease that has been under-reported, and sometimes unknown. A recent surge in Lyme disease-focused publications has resulted in a much needed growth in Lyme disease awareness. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published a guideline with an overview of the main issues with regard to Lyme disease;1 Rayment and O’Flynn have written a summary for the BJGP covering some important points;2 and Cruickshank et al, have also published a recent summary of the disease in the BMJ.3In the last 40 years, Lyme disease has rapidly become the most common tick-borne infection in many parts of Europe and the US. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that there are around 300 000 new cases of Lyme disease per year in the US.4 For all of Western Europe an estimate was published of around 232 000 cases per year, but this was based on data collected many years ago, and so is now likely to be an underestimate.5 A study of data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink, a primary care database covering about 8% of the population in the UK has shown that the number of cases of Lyme disease recorded by GPs increased rapidly over the years 2001–2012, leading to an estimated UK total of nearly 8000 cases in 2012.6 GP medical notes were no longer recorded in the database after 2012, and so estimates are not available for recent years. If the number of cases has continued to rise since the end of the study period, then there could have been over 8000 cases in 2019.Lyme disease was detected in every region throughout the country, but the highest incidence rate … ER -